Are we minds with bodies? Or bodies with minds?

The ole mind-body problem is one that has plagued philosophers for a while now. There are two types of beliefs that are widely held which include dualism of the mind and body. Then the second view materialism that were just bodies. Both views have many questions that need to be answered. If you're new to this problem, you must first find where you decide to fall on what consciousness is and how it relates to the brain.

Our first view that seems to be more widely held than its competitor is dualism. There are different forms of dualism, but it was first introduced by Rene Descartes. Descartes believed that there were to substances in the world physical stuff and mental stuff. The physical being the body/brain, mental being the mind. In his view of substance or Cartesian dualism, he states that the mental can exist outside the body and that the body cannot think He even went as far as to doubt that his body was even real which is where we get his famous quote cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am. The only thing he could know to be real was his thoughts because he was a thinking thing and couldn’t doubt his thoughts. Some issues arise however in this philosophy which includes the problem of how can an immaterial mind cause anything in a material body, and vice versa? This problem of interactionism was the one in which the most feasible answer he could give was that spirits interacted with the body via the penial gland which is a small gland between the two hemispheres in the brain.

The next view is materialism or physicalism which insists that everything that exists in the universe is physical or made of material only. This view would subside by insisting that the mind is simply just the byproduct of the brain and its chemicals and nervous system. Physicalism says that our mind/brain is only physical and this phenomenon that is our consciousness is just due to something like how our brain has evolved over vast time some physicalist theories even go as far as completely denying consciousness. Others, however, don’t go as far as denying it ultimately. Physicalism wants to state that everything that exists or can exist can be described in some way by physics.

Both views, however, have issues concerning consciousness it just depends on from what perspective you're looking at the mind-body problem from. Is the mind part of the body or is the body part of the mind? The way you decide to answer this question will help you decide where you fall into this argument and where you can do more research. I also want to note that materialism or physicalism is known as monism. Monism means that instead of their being a duality to our existence there is only one concept to existence. Whether you think that to be only physical things or only mental their can only be one in a monistic viewpoint.

Now that we have laid out a foundation for materialism and dualism and what they both are I want to give a quick synopsis of what consciousness is because both philosophical arguments depend on us knowing or understanding in some aspect what consciousness is. Consciousness to put a definition too it is an awareness of one's self via one's mind. It is having an awareness that you are aware of. It also helps you form a view of “self” whether it be that internal narrative you have or whatever abstract thoughts you may have. Consciousness also has its own sets of problems because we can't be certain that every human even has a consciousness because it's such a subjective experience you can't even know how sophisticated or if at all an animal would even have one. But the hard problem of consciousness will be covered sometime later in a different blog post.

Now that you have a general idea of what this problem is where do you fall? Are you a materialist? Or a dualist? Did you find this problem interesting? I hope so! A lot of my recent blog posts are specifically very intro related to these topics. In the future expect more in-depth posts about some of these topics but foundations are always important!